AH Chemistry Investigations

Hey

I'm doing the Testing the Water experiment for my investigation. Basicallytesting for the amounts of contaminants such as nitrates, phosphates etc in different types of water and seeing if they match up to whats on the bottle.

But am finding it hard to find on information as to the tests for these that can be done in school conditions.

Anyone know any good websites/information that could be of help?

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

sjames06

You could e-mail some local universities regarding that and maby even getting to use their lab equipment for a few days. A guy I know wrote to one of the Edinburgh universities about a investigation and came back to school after the october holiday to find equipment from them and a suggested investigation.

Did you get a list of ideas for the investigation or did you have to choose?

Reply 2

loopylou74

sorry to crash this thread but i dont feel this is worth making a new one for.

i am doing an investigation on bleach but dont have a clue what i should do for it. we are supposed to have an introduction dont for it soon but d ont really have a clue what to do.

can anyone give me any ideas of what sort of investigation i can do that would be relatively easy?

Reply 3

Meteorshower

Typically i haven't started thinking about an investigation :p:

Reply 4

kayjay

I did the amount of iron in an iron tablet, nice and easy - straightforward practical work with easy variables to change to study diffent things, and the right up is not complicated at all as you simply have to talk about what happens to the amount of iron under diferent conditions

Reply 5

Xeraii

ChocolateEyes, I would be very careful with this project. I was going to do this as well up until just before the holidays, but after speaking to my school technician it sounded rather infeasible.

The only way you can do it under school conditions is by using a flame colour spectrometer to identify the contents (as far as I know), but the amount of water needed is absolutely insane. My technician spoke to a bloke from Scottish Water who predicted you would need approximately 1000 gallons of water to obtain worthwhile results. Whether that's true or accurate I don't know but that's what he said.

Of course, if you can get your hands on spectroscopy equipment then it's no problem, you just need to check the graphs produced. At the same time however that doesn't demonstrate much practical application of chemistry.

I've heard of people doing it before and with success, but it's definitely not the easiest option to shoot for. Basically, if you can get permission from nearby universities to use their equipment it'd make things ten times easier.

Although the SQA generally don't like projects based around taking samples, putting it through spectroscopy then interpreting lines on a graph.

Just my two cents, best of luck with whatever you decide upon! :smile:

Reply 6

Phlebas

A quantitative test of water under school lab conditions will likely be quite difficult so it might be more worthwhile to produce a good write-up for a less ambitious project rather than getting bogged down in complex lab work.

Reply 7

RJack1

Is there any investigation that u are more likely to get an A at?

Reply 8

Meteorshower

One you do properly and write up well.

I'm finding the equilibrium constant of a reaction between potassium thiocynate and iron nitrate using beer's law and a colourimeter. I've done all the practically so just the write up to go :biggrin: